It’s ten years since we first encountered Richard B. Riddick in the monochrome SF horror, Pitch Black. And six years since we were treated to its sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, in which writer/director David Twohy opened up the vista onto an immense and vivid universe barely hinted at in the first movie. Rumours of a third movie have been doing the rounds for years, chiefly fuelled by The Riddick himself, Vin Diesel. The actor’s commitment to the project is understandable as the surly, gravelly-voiced Riddick is one of only a handful of memorable anti-heroes in recent SF cinema.

Diesel’s perseverance has paid off and Universal has agreed to back the third instalment. Twohy will return as writer and director and will co-produce with Diesel. Plot details are thin on the ground, but Twohy told Shock Till You Drop back in August '09 that it would be closer in tone to Pitch Black than to The Chronicles of Riddick, which was not a critical or box-office success. Twohy also concedes that The Chronicles of Riddick cost too much and was “too ambitious".

What this means is that we can expect a more modestly-scaled third movie that will be "Riddick-centric" and more generally focussed on the characters as in Pitch Black. Twohy explained to Shock Till You Drop that, "If the question is whether it will be more like the first one than the second one, the difference is that yeah, you can sell it on its creatures and say 'This is a creature fest and we're going to go out as us vs. the creatures' but that's like a lot of different movies. However, the hallmark of a good movie, and I think Pitch Black is a good movie, is that even if you took the creatures out of the picture, you'd still have some pretty interesting character dynamics going on within that group, and it's almost like you can tell the same story without the creature or substitute some other external pressure on the group, because there were internal pressures as well that were interesting."

I am surprised by the poor critical reception of The Chronicles of Riddick, and I can't agree with Twohy's assessment that it was "too ambitious". It’s not a classic by any means and it doesn’t have the intensity of Pitch Black, but it is a great looking movie with a compelling central character, an engaging story and outstanding action. As sequels go, it also deserves respect for Twohy’s attempt to take the story in a whole new direction, which is the one thing that good sequels tend to have in common. That said, I would have been more than happy for this sequel to pick up precisely where the The Chronicles of Riddick leaves off, tone and all! It's looking increasingly unlikely that this will be the case however. The Hollywood Reporter unearthed some intriguing plot details today:

Though billed as a back-to-basics approach to the character popularised by Diesel, the script features the character -- the most wanted man in the galaxy -- left for dead on a barren alien planet, dealing with "trisons" (three-legged bisons) and "mud demons." He must then contend with two squads of bounty hunters, one of which ride rockets called jetcycles.

At the end of The Chronicles of Riddick the Legion Vast kneel before Riddick, acknowledging him as the rightful leader of the Necromonger Empire, so it's anyone's guess how Riddick winds up left for dead on a barren alien planet in the third movie. One possibility, of course, is that this next instalment is set at some point before the events in The Chronicles of Riddick. We'll keep you posted as details emerge.

It seems that even the title of the third movie is more "modestly-scaled", and will simply be Riddick. Shooting is due to start this year and we can expect to see Vin Diesel as Riddick once again in 2011.